distinguish what they really and originally like from what
they have only learned to tolerate perforce. And these
Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction still quite
legible in their hearts. They had still those clean
perceptions of what is nice and nasty, what is interesting
and what is dull, which envious old gentlemen refer to as
illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle age, the
bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a
man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starr'd young
Belgians. They still knew that the interest they took in
their business was a trifling affair compared to their
spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical sports.
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to
what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have
kept your soul alive. Such a man may be generous; he may
be honest in something more than the commercial sense; he
may love his friends with an elective, personal sympathy,
and not accept them as an adjunct of the station to which
he has been called. He may be a man, in short, acting on
his own instincts, keeping in his own shape that God made
him in; and not a mere crank in the social engine-house,
welded on principles that he does not understand, and for
purposes that he does not care for.

*

I suppose none of us recognise the great part that is
played in life by eating and drinking. The appetite is so
imperious that we can stomach the least interesting viands,
and pass off a dinner hour thankfully enough on bread and